Sibling Attended Births

Can I Place The Hot Pack For You Mamma?

Sibling attended birth - (probably the best assist we had from a 5 year old)Massages and hot water bags for her mum, to getting a towel quickly after her little sister is born and not to mention her squeal of delight as the little one was being born - this little girl was an eager participant, right from applying gel on the Doppler to listening to suggestions. Hats off to her parents for her upbringing!!
This small family, travelled from Chennai for the birth of the choice, and wait they did till 40 weeks and 4 days. Mamma came in, walked outside, went out for dinner and came back and had her baby in an hour, all supported well by her husband and her older girl. And such a treat, to watch all of them settle in for the night, after the birth, all of them together, in our king size birth bed.
Little scribbles......
There is often a misconception about how kids would find it difficult to be at a birth. We often forget that kids know neither shame and are the most accepting of situations and experiences the way it is meant to be without judgment or experience.
So much to learn from these little ones...

A Dada-Chetta (Dad Cum Older Brother) Led Water Birth

We are going to miss the fun and the journey we cherished together,the Lamaze classes, high energy exercise classes (not sure from where she gets her energy), monthly appointments
(where we got scolded for every wrong food choice and every kg gained) , the smiling and welcoming staff downstairs and even strict policy keepers. The entire team was always with a smile including the last day where our midwives were waiting for us at 2.30am with a pleasant and welcoming face.
Before even planning for our second child I and Jaison were very clear that if we are having our second child in Kerala we would want it to be in Birthvillage rather than any institution where we wished to avoid unnecessary medicines and medical interventions. Though my first child was born in a hospital in Mumbai and also a normal delivery, we had no complaints about it. But in Kerala, from what I heard C-section is the most common thing here, and that is the last thing we wanted.
I have had both experiences, i.e. hospital birth of my first child and Birthvillage birth of my second child. Both the experiences are at two extremes. Hospital birth, where you are treated as a patient and made to follow what the doctor says without even questioning whether it is required or not – Inducing Pain, IV even for a normal delivery. At Birthvillage, in every step you are educated and provided with options, where all the pros and cons are explained to you and the most important part THE FINAL CHOICE IS OURS and not anybody else’s. You are treated as a normal human where birth is part of a natural process and you realize that you can actually do anything and everything which we used to do earlier without any restriction. This actually gave me the courage to go ahead on a tractor drive when I was 6 months pregnant without any fear, no restriction on travel, climb stairs as much as possible, walk, jump, dance, exercise, make healthy choices……….. The fun part the finale was when my mucus plug broke. When I called up BV, instead of asking me to take rest or coming straight to Birth village, my midwife asked me to make this day memorable by having a good dinner and a nice dessert followed by a good sleep. That’s how we ended up at Maharaja Bhog in Lulu mall. Even with mild contraction the three of us, with the little one inside enjoyed our dinner together.
The most important part was the selfless support; you could call your midwife any time of the day, no matter how busy she was.... She was always a pillar of support to help us make the right choice. One such choice we made in our 3rd Month of our pregnancy and we are happy that we took that decision. We decided to go for the Down syndrome test and unfortunately the reports were not in our favor, we realized that day morning after seeing the report that we hold a very high chance of having a baby with Down syndrome. Both I and Jaison were very upset and didn’t know what to do. The whole day I was down, confused and worried. We send the reports to our midwife; I think that was the busiest day for her. Even then, she allowed me to call her up at 11pm and patiently listened to me, my worries and gave me a choice that I have further options to further confirm this by taking few other tests which could reconfirm the report, which again comes with a risk of termination. BUT her one question changed everything for us that day, for which I can’t stop thanking her. Had it been in any other institution they would have convinced us to take further tests without educating the pros and cons of it and the conclusion might be terminating the pregnancy. But she had to just ask me what my choice might be if the reports are to be true..... I have only two choices terminate or go forward with the pregnancy. And that should give me an answer to my worries. I and Jaison were very clear that whatever may come, we would never go for a termination and we decided against more additional tests and not to disclose this to anybody in the family till we see our baby. We decided to just enjoy this journey as our midwives advised and the end result is that, we gave birth to a healthy normal baby proving the test wrong.
The amazing part of this birth experience was that, Jaison had the full control and supported me throughout the process and my son Aaron who is ten years old was there right from the beginning till the end witnessing and capturing each and every moment of the new life being born. In fact, we three went through the journey of pregnancy together, right from our prenatal appointments to the birth.
I can go on writing as there are so many good experiences to cherish.
Once again thank you Birthvillage for gifting us a beautiful journey for a lifetime!!!